!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.! ! ! ! Catt's Claws ... A Feminist Newsletter #49 ... June 3, 1995 ! ! ! !.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.! I "love" all these cartoonists of the ultra-conservative right who make digs about the "hot coffee in the lap" suit being a joke. Who hasn't had something spilled in their laps? However, the women who was scalded by the hot coffee had to have plastic surgery. She was horribly burned. It wasn't just an embarrassing situation. It was a terrible medical emergency. Now if one of those ultra-right wing conservatives who think with their nethers were to be scalded in the lap like that, you can imagine what would have happen... Yep ! He'd OWN MacDonalds, but, according to the far-right radical bigots who are using the case to push for their limits on corporation liability even when the corps are intentionally careless, a woman's clitoris is expendable. The so-called settlement, like the case below, involving high dollar settlements to women are reversed and often eliminated by appeals courts. But the angry white males masquerading as journalists NEVER seem to mention that. When I was working in the field, editors REQUIRED both sides be presented. If you ran a quote from A against B you had to have a quote from B or the story didn't run. Wonder what happened to that in the school that produced George Wills ... oh, I forgot. Wills never took any journalism courses. His viewpoints gave him a column not his ability. ....................... * ........................ A federal jury settlement which awarded Kimberly Roth and her father, Paul Ricketts Sr., $1.2 million from the city of Columbia, Mo., was overturned on appeal. The jury found that police did not adequately protect the family from Roth's husband, Sonny Stephens. He fatally shot his mother-in-law and abducted Roth in 1987 after she moved out of the couple's home to escape his physical abuse. She had notified police repeatedly about her husband's threats and behavior. Roth's civil rights lawsuit accused Columbia of violating women's equal-protection rights by arresting domestic attackers far less frequently than they arrested other attackers. The courts however, are ruling that police departments or their communities are NOT legally accountable for their domestic-violence policies which directly contradict their policies for stranger violence. And not even have the responsibility of protecting abused children. In the Roth trial, testimony showed that Columbia police made arrests in 33 percent of all stranger assaults but in only 18 percent of all domestic assaults. Where offenders were present when police arrived, arrests were made in 62 percent of stranger assaults and 29 percent of domestic cases. (62 to 29% !!!!) When a victim wanted an arrest, 57.5 percent of stranger assaults resulted in one, but only 26 percent of domestic assaults. More suits raising the same equal-protection issue are in the offing and it is just a matter of a lot of time and effort before the police and community are held to the SAME standard for the protection of women as they give to drunken men in pool halls. ....................... * ........................ It was bound to happen, and one of the most ultra-conservative columnists has begun a campaign to draft Newt Gingrich for president in 1996 as the ONLY TRUE conservative. Now if that doesn't scare you, you've been on the weed too long. ....................... * ........................ Cheryl Steadman, 34, was commissioned in 1990 as one of the first two female Texas Rangers. In March 1994 she was ordered to make a retreat in which she was told to peel potatoes, make a salad and perform other "womanly" chores while 23 of her male colleagues were gambling, drinking, and traipsing in and out of the two bathrooms without closing the doors, using vile and extreme sexual language. The men made up a poem to salute a retiring member and Steadman said she was shocked to hear so many vile and insulting words describing women that rhymed. When she refused to stay overnight at the cabin she was berated for not being a team player. She took her accusations to Col. James Wilson, director of the state Department of Public Safety and commander of the 103-member Ranger force. The department ordered an internal investigation which has dragged on and on and on. Well, the report has just been leaked ... It's terrible thought I know, but why does Catt's Claws hear the roar of airplane engines and the chant, "Tailhook, Tailhook" when we read that an internal investigation found little to substantiate Steadman's claims. A 200-page report by the state Department of Public Safety, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, concluded that Cheryl Steadman's complaints were filled with "inaccuracies and half stories and information that is plainly not true." The report was based on interviews with other Rangers. HOWEVER !!! ANOTHER WOMAN HAS ALSO FILED A SIMILAR COMPLAINT. Stay tuned - Tailhook took years and no one got bumped, but Navy isn't the same good ole boys club it was. You boys in the rangers can hunker down all you want but nd we'll plunk down a few coins that the Texas Rangers ain't gonna be the big men they thought they were by the time this here dust settles. Look for the FEDERAL investigation. ....................... * ........................ Chapter too many of "We Are Raising Our Sons Wrong:" Mary Jane Daniels Geary was getting into her car to attend commencement ceremonies and receive her diploma May 21 at Augsburg College when her husband jumped in and shot her in the head. He then killed himself. Three children are left behind. Mary Jane was an English major and was to graduate _summa cum laude_. Her parents were waiting in the audience to see her accept her diploma. The local paper was littered with comments like "But he was such a great guy" instead of saying he was a sickie (normal, healthy people don't murder) and intentionally ruined three more lives by leaving behind three orphans who must live with the fact that their father was the murderer of their mother. MJDG worked two jobs and attend weekend college at Augsburg College. She helped parents and children improve their literacy skills and her students were planning a picnic to celebrate her graduation. (As posted to my favorite net by Michelle.) ....................... * ........................ Hillary Rodham Clinton received a $25,000 grant to be donated to her favorite charity as part of the Miss America Organization's "Woman of Achievement Award." The award is given annually by the Miss America Organization to a woman who has demonstrated exemplary commitment to social causes and issues. Rodham Clinton was selected for this honor because of her dedication to community service which encompasses over 25 years of working on behalf of children and families. PREVIOUS "WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT" AWARD WINNERS INCLUDE: First Lady Betty Ford, for her dedication to championing cancer awareness and chemical dependency recovery. 1989 First Lady Rosalyn Carter, for her work on behalf of persons who are mentally ill and handicapped. 1990 Pediatric AIDS Foundation founder Elizabeth Glaser, for her crusade to create greater awareness regarding the pediatric AIDS crisis. 1991 Artist and activist Mary Davis Fisher, for her nationally acclaimed efforts to bring awareness, compassion and healing to the cause of HIV-AIDS. 1993 Vice President of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Nan Roman, who has spent 20 years working to eradicate poverty and help our nation's disadvantaged citizens. 1994 CC-->> Our guess is that the money will be donated to Marian Edelman's Children's Defense Fund, an organization that Rodham Clinton was active in while she was still a practicing attorney and her husband was only governor of Arkansas.<--cc ....................... * ........................ Bob Fertik is the man who sent CC the note about the expose book regarding Newt Gingrich (I had mislaid the attribute) and Nita M. McKinley said she was NOT the one who forwarded the news item from the National Archives (Tuesday, May 30). What happened Nita, I believe someone forwarded your note from another forum to Catt's Claws. CC so tries to be accurate but perfection doesn't seem to be part of the results...but one thing, folks, we ain't too proud or self-centered to admit when we goofed. Wouldn't it be wunnerful if we could say that about some of the Congressional members. Hell, Clinton admits he's been wrong ... ....................... * ........................ If you are tired of Whitewater, and goddess knows I am, skip this next part, but I warn you, you'll be missing some "OH God, NO!" invasions of your civil rights. After Catt's Claws ran a piece about Kenneth Starr the federal prosecutor doing outside work, there was a flurry of nasty remarks in various nets and usenets from you-know-whos. Word got back to me that they were saying CC wasn't being honest. Oh yeah? Starr who gets $115,000 a year for his work as Whitewater prosecutor plus (lots of) expenses, is doing (and we quote from the _Arkansas Times_) "appellate work for a tobacco company from a huge Atlanta law firm best known as Coca-Cola's corporate counsel (as if they didn't have anybody qualified to do appellate work)... "Starr has done more than take outside legal fees. _Legal Times_ will be reporting in its next issue that Starr has been jetting to New York once a week this semester to teach a law school class at New York University ...Producers for CBS' -60 Minutes_ have been inquiring into the same topic." Now, kick back and follow this slowly. Starr has been subpoenaing records of Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker from as far back as his college days ! The idea is to get Tucker, who did have extensive ties to the Madison Guarantee Bank, and by inference Bill Clinton EVEN THOUGH CLINTON AND TUCKER ARE POLITICAL ENEMIES (Tucker ran against Clinton). Also (remember the Coca Cola tie above) Tucker got through a bill that adds a tax on soft drinks that fund medical and welfare treatment in Arkansas that the soft drinks companies spent MILLIONS trying to defeat. Last week Starr issued a subpoena to Gov. Tucker, Tucker's attorney (what happened to client privilege?) and Tucker's wife Betty which grabbed a bunch of headlines. Then Starr WITHDREW the subpoenas because Tucker in effect said kiss my butt I won't be questioned without counsel about the minutiae of my entire life. Actually Tucker said, "It is one thing for them to say `Here are the questions we want to ask you. Here's 10 or 15 documents we want to ask you about.'" But it's another thing when they want to talk about events dating back to 1983 and tens of thousands of documents out of hundreds of thousands of documents. "As I have said from the beginning ...they don't want the president of the Unite States elected again in 1996 and they want to get the coon skin cap of some reasonably high Democratic office to hang on the wall." Indeed, and Tucker went on to say, "NO U.S. ATTORNEY ... WOULD EVER BEHAVE THE WAY THESE SPECIAL PROSECUTORS AND THEIR STAFFS HAVE BEHAVED." Indeed again. Starr and the Whitewater investigation reminds me of the McCarthy hearings ... And again it has taken a woman, Betty Tucker to sum up what's going on. Betty Tucker (one nice lady!) walked into the grand jury room, made a statement and walked out leaving Starr and his posse with their mouths open and spitting out their feet. "After 18 months of being harassed by the Whitewater prosecutor, both me personally, and my family INCLUDING MY CHILDREN there is no way that I would talk with the prosecutors..." Governor Tucker said, "If I don't resist this kind of stuff who will?" Back in the McCarthy days (1952) playwright Lillian Hellman also resisted the dragnet efforts with her famous remark, "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." Her refusal to implicate others certainly cost her Pulitzer Prizes, her home, and years of personal agony. Her book _Scoundrel Time_ draws a blueprint of what Kenneth Starr is doing 43 years later and when she quotes attorney Joseph Welch she is giving us the words we need today: "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" ....................... * ........................ Women's rights are young and tender and we must protect them from the plagues of holy hypocrisy and newts. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>> Send your ideas, comments, and news to irenestuber@delphi.com for inclusion in the Catt's Claws feminist newsletter which will be emailed three times a week: Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. This is NOT an interactive discussion net but an exchange of information and is NOT sponsored by any organization. We are accepting *limited* donations (only what can be spared) to help offset the online costs of posting Catt's Claws. Irene Stuber. PO Box 6185, Hot Springs, AR 71902, fax 501-624-5262 which under I.D. #300 is also my voice phone number through our local BBS.<<<<